


Category-Mistake

by cognomen



Series: The Concept of Mine [2]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-09 03:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The machine was keeping things from him. Had ever so carefully placed its pawn out on the chessboard, manipulating Finch into accepting it as if it were one of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Category-Mistake

"What _was_ that, Mr. Reese?" Finch has restrained himself from the question for an admirably long time. Through the ride home in tense silence while he watched blood trickle slowly - not at an alarming pace, but at a pace that was worrisome - onto the expensive leather upholstery of his car. It _was_ blood at least, he knew that much from past experience. Reese has of course, refused a doctor, suggesting that he doesn't intend to be a repeated exorbitant expense. He's partly right, when he insists that this wasn't a high caliber rifle bullet placed carefully in the weak point of his vest, but a glancing through-and-through shot that's torn only muscle and skin. 

Harold doesn't ask why he wasn't wearing a vest, it seems like the kind of afterthought that might not have mattered much at the time whatever decision it was to come and rescue him was made, but it would have saved John _this_ at least. The fact that he already knows that - has been very good about always wearing a vest in the past - is what keeps Harold from chiding him. John applies his own stitches in the front, and trusts Finch's trembling hands and inelegant knots for the back. It's not something he's ever done before, close a wound like this, and every time he puts the curved needle through skin he feels apologetic. John gives no sign that he even _notices_ the slight pain, continues his stitches at the same time as Finch makes his, and finishes well before.

"A rescue," Reese says, very quietly - ostensibly he's focusing himself, ignoring pain, and he manages to pull up some ghost of his usual sarcasm, but Harold can feel the timing of Reece's breaths. Not absolutely perfect, and Harold does watch his watch offhandedly to be sure, Reese's counts of what Harold guesses are 10 are still too fast, irregardless of how he must be telling himself to go ever slower, to drag out his counts with spacers. Did he use 'choo choo train', 'one thousand', 'sugar plum fairy'? Or nothing at all - it was suddenly easier to think of his many inhumanities. Not that Finch didn't have more than a few of his own.

Frowning when he sees how irregular the resulting line of draws is - Finch can patch a tear in his shirt, or hem trousers, but skin doesn't work like fabric - he ties the last knot anyway. He doubts that Reese will sit still for a re-stitch, irregardless of how crooked the resulting scar will be without one. 

"After the rescue, I mean," Finch leads, trying not to be angry. He'd be angry if Reese had known, and hidden this from him, but Reese was either just as ignorant or a damn good actor. "You seemed - _seem_ pretty shaken up, John."

Reese refuses to answer him, keeps his gaze pointed forward. It's answer enough. 

The machine was _keeping_ things from him. Had ever so carefully placed its pawn out on the chessboard, manipulating Finch into accepting it as if it were one of his own. Accepting a closer protection and association, which Finch had always refused. 

It's both impressive and _terrifying_. It's growing, the machine, only so slowly and carefully that Finch has almost missed it this whole time. He wishes he didn't know this about Reese, could still look at him with uneducated and admiring eyes, but he can't.

He has seen John Reese with his humanity yanked out of him like a cord, long and winding and deeply embedded, but he _knew_ now that if enough force was applied it would come out by the roots and leave - an exposed wire. Raw and electric ends. 

The only thing Finch isn't really sure of is _how_. But he recognizes his own work, the efficiency and effort he'd put into the program shining back in a mirror that he should have recognized right away. He's always been attracted to Reese because the man was familiar, somehow. His effective, unemotional quiet.. His steady tone. Unstoppable dedication.

All that must have stopped him from knowing was the belief that what he guessed now was impossible. He wishes he could have that back, could black out the memory of blank, dark eyes moving in precise arcs and nothing more or less, efficient with no excess and utterly inhuman. Motions gone past precision, past grace or animal instinct, around again to almost a clumsiness save that Finch saw him kill three men by walking headlong into a firefight. Reese had taken a vector that should have been impossible to predict through that hail of bullets, only taking the most minimal of injuries. The one Finch is now sealing under a two inch square of gauze. Even _then_ , Finch would almost be ready to believe in a higher power of divine intervention or sheer miraculous determination or skill except - 

_Except_ he had seen John come back. Like a switch flipped, turning his eyes from cold, furious wells that he could almost read the processes running behind, a different kind of 'windows' to the soul, if Harold allows himself to make so light of the situation as to apply a pun. (He almost can't help it, it's so _unreal_.) And then John had been there again, as if he had slammed into reality like one might feel the impact of a car wreck. No, he had been dispossessed - or _possessed_ might be more apt. 

And Harold isn't sure what can be done about it.


End file.
